County OKs $2M communications hub

Bastrop County commissioners this week approved the purchase of a $2 million building in the heart of Bastrop for its new state-of-the-art communications and emergency management center.

The 18,000-square-foot, single-story building will serve as the county’s “nerve center,” facilitating 911 communications and emergency operations, as well as housing critical information technology infrastructure. It will be built to withstand a future disaster, County Judge Paul Pape said, with increased space for the three departments and room to expand.

“Nobody in Texas has seen more need for these functions than Bastrop County for the last six, almost seven years,” Pape said. “We have seen how valuable these resources are and how important it is to provide them without fail.”

The building is at 1501 Business Park Drive in the Bastrop Business and Industrial Park. Pape said it is a secure location, far from the city’s commercial and residential development and easily accessible from the major thoroughfares of Texas 71 and 95.

The $2.05 million real estate deal is expected to close by the end of July. It was purchased with $10 million in certificate of obligation bond money issued in May. Pape said Monday that $7.5 million of that money had been allocated for the communications building, leaving about $500,000 to complete design sketches and $5 million to renovate the space.

“We felt like this was the highest and best use of these funds,” Pape said. “The greatest immediate need of the county is to provide a home base for these critical functions.”

The building will look much like it does today on the outside, plus a 175foot radio tower that will rise in back, allowing 911 dispatch to communicate with fire, EMS and police across the county.

There is a 60-foot height restriction within the Industrial Park, meaning the Bastrop City Council will have to approve a conditional use permit to allow the county to build the radio tower. That item is expected to come before council members in the coming weeks.

The Bastrop Economic Development Corp., which owns the majority of property in the Industrial Park, already passed a resolution this month favoring the added height for the radio tower.

Currently, the communications department is housed in a cramped space in the county jail building, and the office of emergency management in an old rundown hospital building on Loop 150.

“We are looking forward to being in a more secure, more appropriate facility,” Pape said.

Officials could not release preliminary blueprints for the building because of security reasons, since it will house critical county infrastructure.

Consultants with Kirksey Architecture are making last-minute modifications to the initial site plans, which were completed as part of a $62,000 feasibility study to determine if the building would work for the three departments. Changes will come back to commissioners at the July 10 meeting, with formal design plans approved in the coming months.

Engineers said construction should begin in July 2018, with the building completed by summer 2019.